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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dealings with the U.S. Congress were 20. Chief Executive: profoundly consequential, not just for the policies they yielded, but also for the way they shaped the relationship between the federal government’s executive and legislative branches. No Franklin D. Roosevelt, president, in fact, had a greater impact on this relationship. By the waning days of FDR’s twelve-year presidency in the spring of 1945, a fundamental shift had taken place in Washington, Congress, and the DC. The White House—not Congress—was now widely seen as the leading institution in American government. FDR brought stature and scope to the presidential role, an importance Presidency the office would hold in the eyes of the American people for generations to come. This historic shift is partly attributable to the singular longevity of FDR’s presidency—he is the only president in American history to serve more than two terms— and to the country’s extraordinary need for leadership during the twin crises of the 1930s and ‘40s. But FDR stepped into the job as no one else could have. His strength in Congress rested in part on the fact that he Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses Congress, 1933. When he had cobbled together a pan-ethnic, multiregional Democratic assumed the presidency FDR found a Congress eager to work with him to ameliorate the country’s desperate economic coalition that took in southern Democrats and big-city condition. “The admirable trait in Roosevelt,” said one machines, farmers and industrial workers; indeed, this coalition supporter in the Senate, “is that he has the guts to try.” Congress passed sixteen major bills in FDR’s first one hundred also attracted progressive Republicans. Critics have sometimes days in office.LOC described FDR as intellectually facile, his lacking a

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grand design or ideological unity. But FDR’s implacable civility, and his preference for pragmatic experimentation over clannish adherence to ideology, helped him gain the support he needed to get things done. FDR was a natural leader. Whether due to his patrician background, his upbringing as an intensely cherished only child, or his trial with polio—he once said that after you’ve spent two years lying in bed trying to move your big toe, everything else seems easy—FDR possessed an extraordinary confidence and ease, coupled with abundant energy. He shed a sunny good cheer on the very darkest of days and made people around him feel that all would be well. His willingness to lead, evident from the day he took office, met with relief among Washington lawmakers shaken to their roots by the events of the Great Depression—a banking system in collapse, a quarter of workers idled, farmers producing much but earning next to nothing. As Hiram Johnson, a progressive Republican senator from California, put it at the time, “The admirable trait in Roosevelt is that he has the guts to stubborn, resourceful, relentless.” Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses Congress on the occasion try. He does it all with the rarest good nature. FDR also elevated the presidency by of the body’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, March . . . We have exchanged for a frown in the communicating directly, as no president 4, 1939. “Many other nations envy us the enthusiasm, the White House a smile. . . . Where there were before him, with the American people. attacks, the wild over-statements, the falsehood gaily intermingled with the truth that mark our general elections,” hesitation and vacillation . . . feebleness, In his first radio talk a week after taking he said. “Yes, they envy us because all of these things are timidity, and duplicity, there are now courage office, he addressed a public yearning for promptly followed by acquiescence in the result and a return to calmer waters as soon as the ballots are counted.” and boldness and real action.” leadership and reassurance as “my friends.” The 1938 midterm elections had dealt FDR a setback, with FDR would capitalize on this rapport A reporter would soon dub these novel Democrats losing seats in both houses of Congress. LOC by taking an unusually active role in presidential broadcasts “,” an congressional affairs. He proposed a great apt description of the lively, intimate way FDR deal of legislation, sent many special talked about the affairs of the nation in his messages to Congress, called its leadership mellifluous voice. FDR’s presidency likewise to the White House to confer with him inaugurated a newly direct relationship with personally, and practiced the presidential the press. He held regular press conferences, veto more than any other chief executive engaging in spontaneous, frank exchanges before or since. with reporters while always maintaining FDR’s bond with the American people and Indeed, while FDR sometimes control of information. the thunderous mandate he received in the accomplished his goals by deferring to He often used both these forums to elections of 1932 and 1936 gave him a strong powerful political forces—the southern explain—and gain popular support for— hand to play in Congress. After that, he made senators and congressional isolationists, for policies he was promoting in Congress. In late some costly missteps, and the 1940 election example—he also stood up to opponents with 1940, for example, he addressed the press was much more hard-fought. Still, in that year unflappable determination, often infuriating and then (over the radio) the public about his when the threat of global war loomed, and powerful corporate interests, for example. plan for a Lend-Lease program that would again in 1944 as the United States and its allies “One thing is for sure—that the idea people open the floodgates of American aid to the anticipated a final victory in the conflagration, get from his charming manner—that he is soft British, who then stood alone against the a majority of American voters thought it best or flabby in disposition and character—is far Nazis. In both venues, he explained that the to keep FDR in the White House. FDR died a from true,” wrote advisor Raymond Moley. program would be like lending a garden hose few months after being elected to a fourth “When he wants something a lot, he can to a neighbor whose house was on fire—and term, the people’s appetite for his leadership be formidable; when crossed, he is hard, upwind. having outlived the man.

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the outgoing administration included employing hundreds of thousands A and incoming Roosevelt administration, in of idle young men through the launch of our an unprecedented collaboration, worked nation’s first green jobs program, the Civilian The Hundred Days and frantically to craft a new law that would give Conservation Corps (CCC); rescuing millions the government the powers it needed to of homes and farms from foreclosure through Birth of the New Deal end the crisis. The result was the Emergency the establishment of the Home Owners’ Banking Act, proposed to Congress on March Loan Corporation and the passage of the Almost immediately upon taking office in 9, 1933; FDR had been president five days. Farm Credit Act; the launch of our nation’s the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin House members passed the bill that same first major public utility, the Tennessee D. Roosevelt got down in the trenches of day after hearing the only available copy read Valley Authority (TVA); and the expansion lawmaking, setting a new tone for the way aloud. The Senate then passed the bill by an of the nation’s infrastructure through presidents work with Congress. Having noted overwhelming majority. the establishment of the Public Works in his inaugural speech the public’s demand After signing the bill that evening, FDR Administration (PWA) and other agencies. for “action, and action now,” he called went on the radio to deliver the first of Throughout this remarkable period, FDR Congress into emergency session before the his famous “fireside chats.” He explained enjoyed strong support from both Democrats day was out. Over the next hundred days— the banking crisis to the American people, and Republicans in Congress. Indeed, in what would become the most dynamic assuring them that, thanks to the new law members of both houses either initiated or period of legislative activity in the history of organizing and reopening the banks, their refined a number of bills passed during the American government—he would help shuttle deposits would be safe. FDR’s directness and first hundred days. In a very real sense, then, through that legislative body sixteen major concern inspired Americans, who lined up the achievements of this period, which gave pieces of law. the next day to redeposit their money in the birth to the New Deal, can be attributed The first issue on his agenda: the collapse nation’s banks. The banking crisis was over. to the exceptional degree of cooperation of the American banking system. To halt a Further financial and banking reform between the executive and legislative nationwide run on banks and prevent further legislation followed. Then FDR moved on to branches of government, as well as between losses, FDR declared an immediate “bank push for measures to provide relief for the the two major political parties, in the midst of holiday,” while Treasury officials from both unemployed, dispossessed, and poor. These an unprecedented crisis.

Franklin D. Roosevelt at his inauguration on March 4, 1933, at the U.S. Capitol. In the next few days, FDR would work nearly around the clock with Treasury officials on the first major problem before them: the collapse of American banking. Staff finished the emergency banking bill at 3 a.m. on March 9. An eager Congress passed it by dinnertime that day. On March 12, FDR went on the radio to explain the banking crisis to the American people and ask for their help in resolving it. LOC

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B The Second New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s out-of-the-gate success during his first hundred days, coupled with further New Deal reform and relief measures passed in his first two years in office, garnered strong support among the American public. As a result, FDR became one of only three presidents in American history to gain congressional seats for his party during his administration’s first midterm election. With the backing of a large majority of these Democrats and many liberal Republicans as well, FDR launched what became known as the Second New Deal late in his first term. The Second New Deal would provide millions of Americans with skilled jobs building the nation’s economic infrastructure via the Works Progress Administration, established in 1935 with the passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. Congress also passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, which encouraged farmers to preserve one of the nation’s most precious resources—its topsoil; the Rural Electrification Act, which provided jobs to thousands and “wired” the country by bringing the benefits of electric power to millions of rural Americans; and the Public Utility Act, which was designed FDR is one of only A political cartoon featuring Franklin D. Roosevelt and his to reduce the cost of electric power by “alphabet soup” of new agencies. By 1935, FDR, working regulating the utility industry and forcing the three presidents in with Congress, had initiated a massive program of work relief (the Works Progress Administration), large-scale public breakup of large-scale power monopolies. construction (the Public Works Administration), and farm Most important, the Second New Deal American history to subsidies (the Agricultural Adjustment Administration). The also saw the passage of two landmark reform so-called Second New Deal would establish Social Security, gain Congressional seats among other initiatives. efforts: the National Labor Relations Act, which enshrined the right of workers to form for his party during his unions, and the , which gave Americans not only Social Security, administration’s first but also the first nationwide program of unemployment insurance. midterm election.

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C The 1936 Election, the Supreme Court, and a “Roosevelt Recession”

The passage of such important pieces of reform legislation as the National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act was not without controversy. Many conservatives opposed these measures, including a number of conservative Democrats, especially from the South. But the New Deal reforms were enormously popular among the public, and as a consequence FDR won reelection in 1936 by a landslide, carrying over 60 percent of the popular vote and all but two states in the Electoral College—Maine and Vermont, which voted for the Republican presidential candidate, Alf Landon. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fellow Democrats in Congress also did well. In the House, the Democrats added 12 seats, making he decided to take on the Supreme Court Franklin D. Roosevelt delivering a “fireside chat” radio their 334-to-88 majority the largest since by unleashing what critics called a “court- address on his unpopular plan to reorganize a Supreme Reconstruction. In the Senate, meanwhile, packing” plan in February 1937. Court that had been blocking New Deal reforms, March 1937. He compared the three branches of U.S. government to a the Democrats picked up another 6 seats, The plan proposed the president be team of horses pulling a plow. “It is the American people for a total of 76, as opposed to 16 held by the allowed to appoint up to six additional themselves who want the furrow plowed,” he insisted. “It is Republicans and 4 held by other parties. judges to the bench, one for every sitting the American people themselves who expect the third horse to fall in unison with the other two.” But Congress staunchly Bolstered by his success at the polls— justice who refused to retire after reaching resisted the proposal and the plan died. LOC and lacking the keen political advice of his his seventieth birthday. FDR was within longtime aide, Louis Howe, who died in April legal bounds to request a change in the 1936—FDR embarked on a series of measures court’s makeup, and he was not alone in in 1937 that would cause him considerable his call for judicial reform. But, perhaps Congress. This would make it harder for FDR political difficulty. The first involved FDR’s overly emboldened by his election mandate, to advance the New Deal in coming years. But attempt to reform the Supreme Court; the FDR had failed to prepare the way for his the judicial reversals he had feared did not second involved the onset of the so-called plan, introducing it suddenly and without come to pass. On the contrary, in the midst Roosevelt recession, the result of an untimely congressional consultation. The proposal of the controversy the court began upholding attempt by the Roosevelt administration to ran afoul of the public’s reverence for the every New Deal statute that came before balance the 1937–38 budget. court and its role in the balance of powers; it, launching a new era of jurisprudence; in it inspired indignant opposition, even among a nutshell, the court would now permit the “Packing” the court members of Roosevelt’s own party. As time government to regulate the economy. FDR’s struggle with the court began with a went on, what congressional support there series of rulings the justices rendered late in was for the plan eroded, and after some The “Roosevelt recession” his first term. In May 1935, for example, the months the bill was quietly allowed to die in Somewhat paradoxically, the “Roosevelt court struck down the National Industrial the Senate before it ever came to a vote. recession” resulted in part from the New Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Most historians agree that FDR’s court Deal’s success. FDR had long wanted Act—two key provisions of the New Deal. reform scheme dealt a major political to balance the federal budget, and his FDR was livid, and, fearing for the fate of blow to his presidency, strengthening an administration had always included budget such landmark legislation as the National emerging anti–New Deal coalition among hawks who urged him to insist on fiscal Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act, conservative Democrats and Republicans in conservatism. But in the midst of the

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Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation in a fireside chat to propose a recovery plan in the midst of a sharp economic downturn, October 12, 1937. “Sometimes,” the president said, “I get bored sitting in Washington hearing certain people talk and talk about all that Government ought not to do—people who got all they wanted from Government back in the days when the financial institutions and the railroads were being bailed out in 1933, bailed out by the Government.” The following spring, the president would win congressional approval for a large stimulus package including billions in work relief and public construction. LOC

Depression, FDR had sided with other advisors and authorized deficit spending on a large scale to create jobs, build American infrastructure, and get the economy moving in the process. Since 1933, the tide had turned. The economy had been expanding rapidly, at an average rate of 14 percent per year. Moreover, unemployment, though still high, had fallen by more than 10 percent. Given the improved situation, FDR now took the advice of administration officials schooled in economic orthodoxy, and, in the spring of 1937, he moved to cut the budget, reduce deficit spending, and control inflation by tightening the money supply. The result was unmitigated disaster. CHANGE IN DEMOCRATIC FDR had launched one of the sharpest economic downturns in American history. In HOUSE AND SENATE SEATS IN ELECTIONS just a few short months, the gross domestic DURING FDR’S PRESIDENCY product declined 13 percent, industrial production fell 33 percent, wages dropped Year President House Seats Senate Seats by more than a third, and some four million people lost their jobs. No fool, FDR quickly 1932 FDR elected +90 +9 reversed himself and went back to Congress to seek a massive stimulus bill to put people 1934 midterm elections +9 +9 back to work and repair the damage to a still- 1936 FDR re-elected +12 +7 fragile economy. Within three months, growth had returned and the economy was back on 1938 midterm elections -72 -7 track. But the Roosevelt recession gave 1940 FDR re-elected +7 -3 ammunition to the New Deal’s conservative 1942 midterm elections -45 -8 critics, and this, coupled with FDR’s ill-timed and ill-conceived attempt to 1944 FDR re-elected +24 -2 reform the Supreme Court, resulted in a significant reversal for the Democrats in Source: The American Presidency Project the 1938 midterm elections. FDR’s historic collaboration with a Congress that for the most part rowed vigorously in the same direction as the president was coming to an end.

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D The 1938 Elections and the End of Reform

The midterm elections of 1938 were a serious political setback for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republicans picked up eighty-one seats in the House while taking seven seats from the Democrats in the Senate. Worse still, FDR’s attempt to move his own party to the left by attacking conservative southern candidates in the primaries—the press called it a “purge”— had largely backfired, making conservative members of the party all the more willing to vote against the president. As a result, by late 1938 the anti–New Deal coalition that had been emerging in Congress among conservative Republicans and Democrats was now firmly in place, rendering further New Deal–style congressional reforms all but impossible. In 1939 the more conservative nature of the Congress became apparent as it slashed appropriations for the massive jobs program known as the Works Progress Administration and authorized an investigation into the newly formed National Labor Relations Board.

A migrant worker at a camp in Yakima Valley, Washington, in an image by photographer Dorothea Lange, August 1939. Earlier that year, a more conservative Congress had slashed the Works Progress Administration budget, and this migrant complained that its laid-off workers were beating out migrants for jobs. “Them WPAs are keeping us from a living,” he said. “They oughtn’t to do it. It ain’t fair in no way. The government lays them off and they come in because they’re locals and take the jobs away from us that never had no forty-four dollars a month.” LOC

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strongly against getting involved in a European “lend or lease” war equipment to any nation E war, and he had promised them he would he deemed vital to the defense of the United not send their sons to fight. There was States. Franklin D. Roosevelt, solid support for the neutrality acts among During the same period, Congress also Democrats in Congress, too. Not shy about passed the nation’s first peacetime draft and Congress, and U.S. exercising the presidential veto, FDR chose approved the increased appropriations FDR not to use it to block the neutrality laws. had urged for buildup of America’s armed Foreign Policy, When he did seek revisions that would forces. FDR was preparing the nation for war, 1933–41 allow the United States to help Britain and and though he felt time was of the essence, other nations resist the Nazis, FDR instead he was careful, in this life-or-death matter, applied the power of persuasion, taking to not to outpace public opinion or overtax From 1933 to 1939, Congress pursued a the airways, talking to the press, making congressional support. largely isolationist foreign policy, particularly speeches, and meeting with members of with respect to the rise of totalitarianism in Congress to explain why these moves were Europe. The most emphatic manifestation necessary and important. of this stance was a series of neutrality acts After the outbreak of World War II in passed between 1935 and 1937 that barred September 1939, FDR succeeded in pushing the sale of munitions or extension of loans to through an amendment to the 1937 Neutrality nations at war. Act that repealed its arms embargo and This was an area where Franklin D. allowed the United States to sell arms to Roosevelt had to tread carefully. Though he Great Britain and France if they paid cash and believed the war overseas would undoubtedly transported the goods in their own ships. In affect U.S. security and disliked having his March 1941, Congress passed a much broader foreign-policy options curtailed by the aid program dubbed Lend-Lease. FDR’s own neutrality laws, the American people were brainchild, it simply allowed the president to

A crowd jams a Senate hearing room to hear Henry Stimson, formerly secretary of state and soon to be appointed secretary of war, criticize the neutrality law preventing America from helping allies resist the Nazis, April 5, 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt believed it was critical to provide that aid and would win a moderation of the neutrality act that year. But this was an area where he had to tread carefully, since both Democrats and Republicans supported laws to keep America out of overseas wars. LOC

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F Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress at War, 1941–45

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt no longer needed to convince either Congress or the American people that war was upon them. A joint session of Congress overwhelmingly supported FDR’s request for a declaration of war against Japan. Congress also supported the president’s request for additional military appropriations and granted him additional powers to create new war agencies, reorganize the executive branch, and enforce wartime regulations and controls. But support for the war effort in Congress did not dislodge the conservative coalition that had formed in 1938, and in the years after FDR’s unprecedented election to a third term in 1940 and the midterm elections of 1942, opposition to his domestic-reform agenda held fast. As a result, Congress terminated the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the National Youth Administration, and the National Resources Planning Board in 1943. FDR managed to push through the G.I. Bill of Rights in June 1944, providing veterans with education and training, loan guarantees for homes and businesses, and unemployment insurance. in part because of FDR’s willingness to The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin But Congress rejected his call for a national involve Republican congressional leaders D. Roosevelt signs a declaration of war against Japan. A service bill to enlist civilian labor in the war in the burgeoning effort to secure a lasting joint session of Congress had overwhelmingly supported his effort and his flirtation with national health peace, by establishing the United Nations, request for the declaration. Congress would also support the president’s request for additional military appropriations insurance. among other measures. Sadly, though, FDR and grant him additional powers to create new war agencies, November 1944 saw FDR’s star seem didn’t live to see these plans through. He reorganize the executive branch, and enforce wartime to ascend once again. He was elected died unexpectedly on April 12, 1945, just regulations and controls. National Archives to an extraordinary fourth term, and the days before the San Francisco Conference Democrats made gains in the House. convened to draw up the United Nations Support for the war effort—and for his Charter, and only weeks before the war in wartime leadership—also remained high, Europe came to an end.

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the executive branch. In the process, the the country’s economic woes and launch White House and the office of the presidency important reforms. But by the midpoint of G took on more stature in the eyes of the public, his second term, the political landscape becoming the central institution and the most had shifted, and further major reforms The Legacy of salient symbol of the U.S. government. were no longer possible. Ironically, it was This is not to say that Congress had members of his own party—the conservative Franklin D. Roosevelt’s become irrelevant. On the contrary, the many Democrats—who were largely responsible for legislative achievements of the New Deal would the shutdown of FDR’s reform agenda and the Leadership in not have been possible without the strong termination of the New Deal. Washington, DC support and at times the initiative of key Nevertheless, FDR’s ability to give voice members of the House and Senate. Nor did the to the average American and to establish a president become all-powerful, although some host of enduring social policies, from Social criticized FDR’s broadening of the presidential Security to the minimum wage, left the Though the way Franklin D. Roosevelt role as a reflection of his egotism. In fact, FDR American people with a new image of their enlivened the presidency and changed its faced considerable opposition to his reform central government. Previously only a distant relations with Congress followed the example efforts in Congress. This was particularly true regulator of economic and social affairs, the of his mentors Theodore Roosevelt and among conservatives of his own party, who federal government—as represented by the Woodrow Wilson, the mark he left on the held many key committee chairmanships, were president working with Congress—assumed office was very much his own. From FDR’s never very comfortable with the New Deal, and the responsibility to support prosperity, tenure on, it was very often the president vehemently opposed much of his progressive mitigate the harshest effects of unfettered who initiated legislation, frequently drawing agenda, especially with respect to matters of capitalism, and conserve and develop the on the expertise of the White House staff race. nation’s vast natural and cultural resources. In or members of the civil service to help craft The crisis of the Great Depression allowed less than a decade, the U.S. government had legislation. Congress, meanwhile, became him to pull together enough congressional become the primary guarantor of social and more of a reactive body, shaping and other support (including from liberal Republicans) economic justice for its people. times obstructing initiatives emanating from to put in place programs and laws to mitigate

A poster rallying voters to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt—“Our Friend”— to a fourth term in 1944. The longest-serving president in American history, FDR elevated the office itself, making the president both a symbol of America and, frequently, a source of major policy initiatives. The poster is by the artist Ben Shahn, for the political arm of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a labor organization. Ben Shahn

II. Hope, Recovery, Reform: The Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal 20. Chief Executive: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress, and the Presidency